Tag: The Lever

Rise Of The Insurance Apocalypse

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.levernews.com/rise-of-the-insurance-apocalypse/

Excerpt:

Most insurance companies at that time assessed hurricane exposure in their portfolios by simply multiplying customer premiums by a rough factor of supposed risk, rather than tracking actual property replacement costs. “They were just very crude formulas,” she said. 

So in 1987, Clark had started her own company, Applied Insurance Research, or AIR, to develop software that better estimated the potential losses from catastrophic events. Unlike the rest of the industry, she used granular data and sophisticated analyses, an approach now called catastrophe modeling. Her first computer model estimated that a Category 5 hurricane hitting Dade County could cause losses almost 10 times more than previously believed. She warned her customers about the risk in Florida, but until Hurricane Andrew, no one listened. 

Author(s): Lois Parshley

Publication Date: 23 Sept 2024

Publication Site: The Lever

Hospitals Are Flouting — And Fighting — Price Transparency Rules

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.levernews.com/hospitals-are-flouting-and-fighting-price-transparency-rules/

Excerpt:

The vast majority of U.S. hospitals are ignoring a new bipartisan federal law that requires the facilities to make their service prices available to the public, new research shows, and the Biden administration is facing growing criticism for not doing enough to enforce compliance with the landmark rule.

Now one state, Colorado, has taken matters into its own hands, passing an innovative law to bring its hospitals into compliance with the federal price transparency requirements — despite health care lobbyists’ efforts to sink the legislative effort.

….

Against the backdrop of limited federal enforcement, Colorado is leading the charge on creatively bringing hospitals into compliance, thanks to a new state law: House Bill 1285.

The law, recently signed by Gov. Jared Polis (D) and effective starting this August, has dual goals of accelerating the timeline on which hospital systems must meet the federal mandate, and curbing the crippling medical debt that plagues more than 100 million Americans.

The measure adds a state-level enforcement mechanism by requiring that hospitals be in compliance with the federal pricing transparency act in order to send Coloradans to collections for medical bills.

David Silverstein, founder and chairman of patient advocacy organization Broken Healthcare, wrote the bill and spearheaded the effort to get it across the finish line.

Author(s): Aditi Ramaswami

Publication Date: 27 Jun 2022

Publication Site: The Lever

To Fight Inflation, The Fed Declares War On Workers

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.levernews.com/the-fed-declares-war-on-workers/

Excerpt:

New inflation data released Friday offered dismal news: Historic price increases aren’t showing any signs of abating, and in fact may be accelerating.

What can be done? Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has an idea: throw cold water on the hot labor market — perhaps the one bright spot in the current economy.

In fact, Powell recently screamed the quiet part out loud, making clear the largest central bank in the world is in fact an adversary to workers, when he declared that his goal is to “get wages down.”

At a May 4 press conference in which he announced a .5 percent interest rate hike, the largest since the year 2000, Powell said he thought higher interest rates would limit business’ hiring demand and lead to suppressed wages. As he put it, by reducing hiring demand, “that would give us a chance to get inflation down, get wages down, and then get inflation down without having to slow the economy and have a recession and have unemployment rise materially.”

Author(s): Julia Rock

Publication Date: 13 Jun 2022

Publication Site: The Lever